Re: English Young (was: Indo-Iranian Vowel Collapse)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> Richard Wordingham wrote:
>
> > a) The singular derives from *kalba-m or *kalba-z - both neuter and
> > masculine thematic plurals are know from Old English.
>
> Of course the es-stem nom.sg. *kalb-az is indistinguishable from

these

> two in OE. Are you sure about the neuter thematic plural? It would be
> *<c(e)alf>, but as far as I recall the only neuter plural in OE is
> <c(e)alfru> (beside strong masculine <c(e)alfas>).

I have to rely on my derived sources. Onions reconstructs West
Germanic *kalbam, and cites a masculime _kalbr_ from Old Norse. (I hope
I remember the labial correctly - I'll check tonight.) Whether the
termination of the West Germanic construction signifies anything I
don't know. Does -r- ever show up in the singular of es-stems in West
Germanic?

For the OE plural, I can only go by Quirk and Wrenn's '_Cild_, _cealf_,
and _lomb_ appear also with General Neuter inflexions (like _land_,
para. 31), and the first two are recorded more rarely with General
Masculine inflexions.'.

Richard.